Hello Heartache
by DisguisedasInnocent
Summary: "I've seen your best side and you got to see my worst…" (Avril Lavigne, Hello Heartache). There are always loses in the line of duty, all of them are unexpected and unwanted, some more than others.


_I had Angst feels I needed to get out before writing the second part of the _Pleasure to Teach_ story..._

* * *

Gail felt it before it happened.

She felt the impact of the bullet cutting through the woefully thin material of her shirt, breaking through the layers of fleshy skin hidden underneath her collarbone before bursting out of the bone of her shoulder blade. Gail felt the searing pain as an electrical burst through her nerve endings and a fire in her blood. The force of the impact threw her backwards onto the floor, her head smashing against the ground with an uncomfortably solid smack.

She felt it all before registering the sound of the gunshot.

The sounds filtered in afterwards in the seconds she spent staring upwards at the cloudless blue sky before her partner's hand appeared in front of her eyes. The thunderous crack of the bullet in the air as Dov's hand tightened around her jacket, tugging her backwards along the ground to the cover of their squad car. She heard the crunch of gravel underneath her body in the searing burning pain that screamed through her veins.

Gail heard the throb of her blood through her veins before recognising the sound of Dov's anxious words.

"Gail," Dov shouted, tapping his fingers rapidly across the woman's pale cheek, desperate for a reaction beyond the sightless stare of her icy blue eyes. "Come on, I need you, you don't get to do this to me."

"I'm not doing anything," Gail groaned, blood bubbling out of her lips, up the length of her throat to dribble down the side of her cheek.

"Back-up's on the way Gail," Dov whispered desperately, his fingers shaking as he worked to undo the straps of her bulletproof vest, ripping it away from her body to gain access to the wound site. "I'm getting you out of here."

Gail felt it first in the coldness that crept up her spine.

She felt the pulse of her heart weakening, struggling to continue forcing blood throughout her circulatory system, to overcome the volume of blood rushing out of her body. "No, you're not." She murmured coughing on the blood in her mouth, spitting it out of her mouth with a ragged breath in. "I'm sorry."

"No!" Dov growled angrily, tearing Gail's shirt open, a soundless sob rising up his throat at the sight of her chest – a mangled crimson red mess of blood and bone. "You're coming home with me. You're Gail Peck, you're not dying here."

"Yes, I am." Gail grunted, lifting her hand to grip the lapel of Dov's shirt, tugging him downwards sharply to stare into his expressive blue-green eyes. "I need you to do something for me Dov."

"Anything, I'll do anything." He whispered brokenly, digging his fingertips into the soft flesh surrounding Gail's wound, "But you've got to hang on for me."

"I'll do my best," Gail murmured spitting out another mouthful of blood, adrenaline rushing through her veins, numbing the pulsing ache of her chest. "Tell Holly that I love her. Not that I loved her I love her; tell her that she made me want to be in that tree. Tell her that I'm sorry I fucked up. Tell her to be happy. Tell her that she's the best person I've ever met."

"Tell her yourself." Dov whimpered as he pressed harder against the wound, feeling Gail's blood trickle out from between his fingers, coating his hands in the life essence of his best friend. "Dispatch, I need a location on that back up, Peck's losing a lot of blood."

"Back up and the ambulance is five minutes out Epstein." Dispatch replied, Dov's radio crackling with an edge of finality before disappearing into static.

"Dov, tell her, promise me." Gail asked desperately, tightening her fingers around Dov's shirt. "Promise me."

"I promise." Dov whispered staring down into Gail's blue eyes as the gleam disappeared, fading into the endless pools of soft blue, the eyes of the only woman that he ever loved enough to lose himself.

* * *

Five minutes later, when back up arrived, Dov remained bent over Gail's body his forehead pressed against the woman's cheek, crying desperate tears into her skin.


End file.
